


The Tsum of Emotions

by TheStrange_One



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Abduction, Aliens, Depression, M/M, No suicide actually occurs, Suicidal Thoughts, Tsums, space worms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29918454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStrange_One/pseuds/TheStrange_One
Summary: A race of aliens known as the Thalsher have arrived at Earth eager to help spread their buddies, the tsums, with humans. Some humans are more open to the tsums than others.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27
Collections: /r/FanFiction Trope Bingo Events





	The Tsum of Emotions

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Come Up to Meet You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16383614) by [Taste_is_Sweet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/pseuds/Taste_is_Sweet). 



> This fic checks off the squares Survivor's Guilt, His Own Worst Enemy, Self Surgery, Indy Hat Roll, and Babies Ever After. (I do not have Bingo.)
> 
> Also, Trigger Warning! The fic starts off with Wade in a Very Bad Place. Read with CAUTION. Thank you! :)

Hollow broken eyes, set in a mask of rotting flesh and maggots, stared into Wade’s soul. _“Why didn’t you save us?”_

He could see the pile. A pile of bodies. Each one staring accusing, accusing, _“Why didn’t you save us?”_

Each word stabbed; its own knife. The question twisted. His soul shivered. And, once again, he stared at his gun. Why _hadn’t_ he saved them? Why hadn’t he broken out sooner? If he’d just been a few days, a few hours faster…

“Deadpool.” The voice, real instead of memory, shocked him out of his reverie. He turned his head to see—Spider-Man.

Suddenly he was no longer on that hellish mountain of corpses. He was in New York, sitting on the ledge of a building, gun in his lap. Spider-Man watching him.

The masked hero stood, arms in front of his chest. His arms weren’t crossed, like he was upset with Wade, but parallel, like they were holding something. “Whatcha got there, Spidey?” he asked.

Spider-Man watched him warily for a moment. “Put the gun up first,” he said.

Wade chuckled darkly. He didn’t know if Spidey was haunted by his own ghosts, or if that was just Wade. He wanted to ask, but didn’t think Spidey would tell him. That was all right; they both had their secrets. For Spider-Man it was his identity, and for Wade it was his face.

And his guilt. He couldn't admit to anyone how he’d had no compunction about the mountains of corpses _he’d_ created, but the one of people he couldn't save haunted him. Sure, like Cap said, he’d been in a test tube at the time, but—but he’d broken out. If he’d just been a little faster…

“Deadpool.”

Oh, right. He wasn’t there anymore. He was on the roof, with the spider who had an irrational (totally rational) dislike of guns. Wade gave a low whine. “I never get to play with Bertha anymore,” he complained. But he slipped the gun into her holster.

Spider-Man vaguely relaxed. He sat on the ledge next to Deadpool, legs swinging absently as he presented his burden to the former mercenary. Deadpool looked down to see—a worm? No, couldn't be a worm. Worms didn’t have legs. Or really heads. And definitely didn’t have large googly eyes or mouths that crooned wordless nonsense.

A tsum. Spider-Man had gotten a tsum. And he was—showing it to Wade? Why? No, he had to be seeing things again. Although it was a more pleasant thing to be seeing. “Is that—a tsum?” he asked carefully.

Hell, his mind could be playing tricks on him and Spidey could be holding a bag of tacos for all he knew.

“It is.” Wade might not have been able to see the smile on the vigilante’s face, but he could hear it in his voice. “I got a tsum, and I wanted to introduce the two of you. Deadpool, this is my tsum.” Spider-Man scratched the side of his face nervously. “It doesn’t have a name yet,” he admitted.

Wade knew all about the little space worms being disseminated to the general populace. He hadn’t thought that _Spider-Man_ would get one. Wade eyed the critter warily. “Why did you get a little parasite?” he asked.

Spider-Man made a clucking sound and put on his sonorous “professor” voice. In any other situation it would make Wade hot under the collar, and not as in mad.

Heh. Mad.

“…so tsums are _not_ parasitic in nature, but symbiotic, encouraging a healthy mental balance in their people.”

Wade’s suspicion of the space worm didn’t ease. “I’d think if anyone was wary of ‘symbiotic’ aliens, it would be you.”

Spider-Man laughed and relaxed from his teaching persona. Part of Wade mourned the loss, but eh. This was more important. “I was. And I wasn’t going to get one, except there were a combination of factors. One, I saw what happened when Doc Oct got his.”

A moment’s searching placed the villain in Wade’s memory. “Dude with the mechanical arms?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

A gloved finger gently caressed the little tsum’s head. Spidey’s finger, of course. Wade didn’t touch the thing. “The ‘good’ doctor asked if we could pause the fight so he could put his tsum somewhere safe. I put his tsum on the roof of a nearby building and then we got to the fight.” Wade looked at him incredulously and the masked hero chuckled. “He still tried to kill me, don’t get me wrong, but it was—nice, I guess? To have a conversation with the man that wasn’t him screaming about how he’s going to kill me?”

Fascinated Wade asked, “What happened when he was arrested?”

“Well, I got the little tsum down from the building and delivered it to him through the cop car window. And that was just one instance. I think the Doc might be rethinking his journeys into villainy.”

“Because of this?” asked Wade. He tentatively pointed towards the thing, jerking his hand back when it reached for him.

The thing’s bottom lip poked out in a pout. A fucking pout. The alien space worm was _pouting_ at him.

Oblivious to the interaction between masked mercenary and space worm, Spider-Man continued on. “But what really cinched it for me was Loki.”

“You got this from the God of Mischief?” demanded Wade, looking at the thing with more respect. It cooed at him.

The thing was scandalously adorable.

Webs laughed. It was a good sound. Wade wanted to record it so he could listen to it for the Bad Times TM . “No, he wanted one.”

“No shit?”

“None. I was there. He was telling Thor about what wonderful creatures tsums are, and Thor asked why he didn’t have one. He said he couldn't get one, and one of the Thalsher was there and just handed him one.” Spider-Man gently set his tsum down on the ledge between him and Wade.

For one, brief moment, Wade thought about pushing the tsum over the edge, seeing if it went splat. He couldn't. Not only had the tsum not done anything wrong (yet), Spider-Man would never forgive him.

“You should have seen Loki’s face,” Spider-Man went on, blissfully unaware of Wade’s dark thoughts and tendencies.

“Upset?”

“Nah,” Spider-Man easily disagreed. The space worm got to its feet, well, got to the ends of its stubby little legs, and made its way towards Wade. “He got that look people get when they get something they’ve wanted for a long time but couldn't get it.”

“That’s amazing.” Wade watched, almost paralyzed, as the thing reached his leg and tried to climb. Fortunately the thing didn’t have the sticky abilities that Spidey had.

Spidey huffed another laugh. “What’s really funny is that Thor wanted one and the Thalsher said they didn’t think he was ‘mature enough’ to handle one.”

Wade burst out laughing and the thing cooed at him like it thought it was the reason he was laughing.

“I know, right?”

The tsum wandered too close to the edge and Wade gently used a finger to push it back, only to have the thing grab his finger with all four stubby little limbs. As he watched the thing was developing red markings. He vaguely remembered hearing that they took on characteristics from their humans as they grew. “Isn’t that dangerous?” he asked looking at it. “Won’t it give away your identity?”

“Nah. You wouldn't _believe_ the colors these things come in. And this isn’t even their final form,” Spider-Man informed him. “The colors change while they're in this stage and only stabilize after they pupate.” The hero’s voice was excited and quick, eager to share his new knowledge with—with whatever Wade was to him.

“Do they get wings?” asked Wade, tsum still around his finger.

“They get paws for hands and feet, and don’t get to change colors anymore,” Spidey said.

Wade lifted his finger and the space worm started to go with it, but began to slip. Spider-Man reached out and easily caught it. “What do your friends think of it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. What _do_ you think of it?”

“What?” Wade’s attention was drawn back to the masked hero.

“Deadpool,” and Wade could hear the frown in the wall crawler’s voice, “ _you_ are my best friend. Hell, I think you’re my _only_ friend.”

What? “I don’t even know your name,” Wade protested.

“You don’t? Oh, you don’t.” The hero rubbed at the back of his head. “This is so much more me,” he said with a gesture at his suit, “that I forget it’s not. Like, it feels more like the _real_ me, you know?”

“Despite the mask.”

Spider-Man barked out a laugh. It was not a happy sound and the little tsum in his hands cooed and tried pat the hand it was in comfortingly while streaks of red, white, blue, and black ran through its body like threads. “I wear a mask either way,” he confided. “This is just the mask on the _outside_ , which is a lot more freeing than the other one.”

The vigilante looked at him. “My name’s Peter, by the way.”

Peter. What a pretty name. Belatedly Wade realized he needed to reciprocate. “Wade,” he said. He twiddled his thumbs for a moment while the two sat, side by side, on the roof. “So, uh, do I get to see the man behind the mask?” he asked hesitantly. “I mean, you don’t have to, by any means, I just—wanted to?”

He could feel the flush crawling up his skin. No wonder poor Peter wasn’t saying anything. Wade was a horrible human being. Just because the hero thought of him as a friend—

(best friend)

—didn’t mean he trusted Wade.

“Not here,” said Peter easily. “There’s at least three cameras, two phones, and four people watching us.” When Wade looked at him, he shrugged. “I can always tell when someone's watching me. Helps me keep my secret identity, well, secret.”

Wade laughed. “Good for you!”

Then there was a bank robbery and Spider-Man and Deadpool reported for duty.

But Wade didn’t forget.

Less than a week late Wade stopped on a building—to see Peter’s tsum waving its stubby little arms up at him. He stopped. Looked at the thing.

He still didn’t trust it. The only good thing about the tsum, Wade reckoned, was that Peter wasn’t trying to get him to accept one too. Of course, if the Thalsher thought _Thor_ would be a bad fit for the tsums, they’d never give one of the critters to _Deadpool_. Not that he wanted one anyway.

The critter pointed and wobbled over to Wade, trying to grab one of his shoes to lead him somewhere. After extensive research, Wade had decided the things didn’t bite (yet), so he scooped it up in his hand. “Point the way,” he said calmly. The thing did, leading him down a fire escape and to the window of a cheap, crappy apartment. A cheap, crappy apartment that happened to have Peter hunched over a sink as he sewed up a gash in his side.

Deadpool pushed the window open (slightly surprised that it wasn’t locked) and leaned in. “Baby Boy,” he said wearily, “you need more hands for that.”

Peter grimaced and Wade was almost certain it had nothing to do with the needle passing through his skin. “Do not tempt my mutation, Wade.”

Still, at a little bit of gentle urging, Peter did allow Wade to take over the sewing while his tsum dropped onto the counter. “What happened?” he asked.

Peter grunted at the welted bruise that was forming under the gash as Wade pinched the sides of the skin together for sewing. “Rhino sharpened his horn,” he grunted.

“I thought tsums were mellowing your villains gallery out?” Wade commented.

Peter huffed a laugh. “Rhino doesn’t have one,” he said. “I can’t blame them. The man is unpredictable at the best of times. He really chose his moniker well.”

“How so?” Wade tied off the thread and handed the still threaded needle to Peter, who put it in a bag and back in the first aid kit.

Peter snorted. “He’s stupid and easily enraged.” A loud clap of thunder made both of them jump and they looked out the window just in time to sheets of water dump on the fire escape. Wade reached over Peter and closed (and locked) the window.

They stared at the rain for a moment. “I think New York can take care of itself tonight,” Wade said slowly.

Peter grinned. “Yeah. Want to play some games? I got a freebie from Steam.”

“Always!” Wade grinned.

Wade was, as usual, ignoring the meeting going on around him. He didn’t care what the suits—both business and super—were arguing about. It always amounted to the same thing anyway: attack the bad guys, get hurt, retreat, attack harder, break through, lose Deadpool to an attack that would have been suicide for anyone else. He didn’t care.

But the tsums. The little space worms on the table. _Those_ were interesting to watch.

They were tumbling, rolling, playing. One of them vaulted over another in a classic 6.5. (Would have been more, but the worm didn’t stick the landing.) Ever the antagonist, Wade gently rolled a couple of coins into the mix. One of the coins ended up on its side and a tsum jumped on top of it and rolled with it. Two picked up the other coin while a fourth jumped on top and the two spun it. The little tsum on the coin let out a happy squeal.

“Deadpool, are you paying attention?” demanded a harsh voice.

“No,” Wade answered honestly. He heard the throaty chuckle of his Spider (best friend!). “I’m too busy watching your tsums to give a shit.”

Silence from the humans. A glance around showed that they were now watching the tsums play with the coins. They all had that fond, happy look that humans had when they were watching something cute.

Huh. Maybe there was more to this little critters than he thought.

Wade learned the hard way that things could only go so far from their humans. The tsum in his hand began fading fast after his Spider-Babe was kidnapped during a battle. Why the slim purple aliens wanted the spider was beyond him. It sounded like a poorly thought out fanfiction trap to him.

“Okay, little guy,” Wade said as he hopped a ride on one of the slim, flying discs the aliens seemed to be using. “We’re going to play the world’s worst game of ‘hot and cold’ ever.” The tsum, barely moving and a sick yellow-green color, made an awful, pained sound.

Wade was surprised by how much the sound hurt. He didn’t think he’d gotten attached to the thing. He hadn’t. He just cared because Spidey cared, and he cared about Spidey. Besides, he’d learned that the tsum was a pretty good indicator of how Spidey was doing mentally. The worse Spidey was, the worse the tsum was.

Wade had never seen the tsum this bad before, and he was frightened. What were the aliens _doing_ to Spidey? To Peter? To his best (only) friend?

The doors in the ship rose and fell in a pattern, making the whole thing seem like some kind of demented platform game. “Okay, Little Guy,” Wade said as he tucked the tsum between his neck and shoulder (experience had shown him that the thing could hold on from there), “let’s get this party on the road.” He watched the doors again, making sure he had the pattern in his mind before running. He ran through three doors until they started closing and ducked for the fourth, fifth, and slid through the sixth.

A soft sigh alerted him to the fact that the tsum was no longer on his shoulder and he turned to see that it was on the other side of the door. His heart constricted. If these aliens found the tsum, what would they do to the poor little guy?

He quickly stuck his arm under, scooped the tsum in his hand, and yanked it to his side of the door before it closed. He cradled the tsum to his chest as he panted. “Woo, don’t scare me like that,” he gently admonished the tsum.

It looked up with dull eyes and he nearly cursed. The tsum wasn’t looking any better. In fact, it was looking worse. Was Peter even _on_ the ship? He’d assumed so, since this was the mother ship of the aliens that had grabbed his wall crawling vigilante. Then again, he also knew what people said about “assuming” things.

_Shush clank shush clank shush clank_

What was that sound? Wade froze and wished his mask didn’t hide his ears. He didn’t know if cupping his hands around them would make the sound easier to distinguish, but he didn’t like not having the option. The sound was getting closer.

“What are you doing?” hissed a voice. He looked up to see a face looking down at him from a grate in the ceiling. “They’re coming!”

Spidey would have had no trouble leaping up, sticking to the ceiling, and then climbing into the vent. Wade had a little more trouble than that, especially since the tsum couldn't hold on like it usually did. “Hurry up!” hissed the voice.

“Keep your shirt on,” Wade grumbled. “This is _hard_ when you can’t stick to surfaces.”

“ _I_ can’t stick to surfaces,” muttered the voice as Wade managed to get into the vent. He eased the cover back into place just as a slim purple alien, propelled by a series of rotating tentacles, pushed a metal gurney that had an unconscious Peter strapped to it.

The sight punched the breath from Wade’s lungs, and not just because it was Peter. It had been _Spider-Man_ that had been taken; it was Peter on the gurney. They had taken his clothes.

Wade didn’t want to know what else they’d done to him.

“That your friend?” the voice asked. Wade turned his head to see a young girl, either preteen or young teen, hacked off curly hair in a frizzy halo around her head, dark eyes wide with sympathy. “That’s rough.”

“Where are they taking him?” asked Wade, as softly as he could.

“Processing.” The girl’s voice was just as soft as his. “Then the tube room.”

“Tube room?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what it’s called. But there are these long glass tubes and they’ve been putting people in them. Not me, though. I escaped.”

Wade nodded. “Good. I’m going to go rescue my friend.”

A small hand reached out and grabbed his arm. “They’ll get you, too.”

Wade felt a smile split his face under his mask. “Oh, Honey,” he purred. “I hope they _try_. Just point me in the right direction.”

Wade looked into the small room. Peter was lying on the metal table, white as a sheet, in nothing but a pair of boxers. (Boxers that, a part of Wade was tickled to notice, had Deadpool logos on them.) One of the aliens swiped over the prone body with an orange globe that emitted a ray of light that fell on Peter. It turned to another alien, standing in front of a large series of giant crystals that were growing out of the floor, and the second alien shook its head. They both seemed dejected.

Wade didn’t know what that was about, but he wasn’t going to let them take his Petey anywhere. He dropped into the room, the tsum falling off his shoulder and onto the prone body, as he drew his swords (wasn’t sure if guns would puncture the hull and he didn’t want to risk hurting Peter). “Somebody’s been bad,” he sang as he advanced on the alien.

The one by the crystals held up an orange ball of its own which flashed and spoke in a stilted manner, much as the the one that came from cheap vocal software. “Be care…ful. The Pat…ient is…in not good…condi…tion.”

Patient? Condition? Wade angled to put himself between the aliens and Peter’s prone body, which still hadn’t twitched. “And did you make his condition not good?”

The purple alien twitched uncontrollably. “No,” came the robotic voice from the crystal. “Tsum miss…ing. Pois...on flow…ing through Patient.”

“Poison?” asked Wade as the second alien got excited. It jumped up and down, in the same place, for a moment as it pointed at the gurney. Wade glanced behind him and saw that color was slowly returning to Peter’s alabaster cheeks.

“Tsum has…been re…turned?”

“He left it with me before the battle,” said Wade remembering. “To keep it safe.” He watched warily as the little guy started spitting black threads and weaving them around itself.

“Zir is…saving…patient!”

“Is it dying?” asked Wade, in shock.

“No. It is…changing…growing…getting…stronger.”

Wade watched as both Peter’s body got warmer, better and the tsum wove a black cocoon around itself. Peter shifted slightly, eyes opening a crack. Wade reached out. “Hey, Baby Boy,” he said softly.

As Peter’s eyes fastened on him, the alien orb spoke again. “You are…Deadpool…a merc…ena…ry?” Wade turned his attention to the alien. “You take…jobs for…payment?”

“What job are you thinking of?” asked Wade. He twitched when Peter’s hand entwined fingers with his own and he gave a gentle squeeze as he heard Peter sit up. “I’m very picky, you know.”

“There is…a hu…man child…in vents. We do…not know…child’s fam…ily. Can you…find?”

“You want Deadpool to find the family of the child in your vents?” Peter hazarded. “Where are my clothes?” Wade turned to see that Peter had just noticed his state of undress.

“We want…the child…to be…found and…returned. Your clothes…are have…ing tox…ins re…moved.”

“Toxins?” asked Peter, clearly confused.

“Babe,” Wade said, knowing that Peter was about freak out, “you were in the suit when they grabbed you.”

“The suit? What su…oh, shit.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Wade hurriedly explained.

“Is the…suit spec…ial?” asked the orange orb.

“Very important,” Wade explained. He wandered away from Peter as he heard scratching. Normally he would have dismissed the scratching as rats, but he had a sneaking suspicion that there were no rats on the ship.

“What’s wrong with my tsum?” asked Peter.

“It helped you get rid of whatever toxin the aliens were worried about and spun a cocoon around itself.” Wade got under the vent. Then, in a swift movement, he took his sword out and sliced the ceiling. The girl gave a low shriek as she tumbled, only to be caught by Wade. “You’re good,” Wade told the child. “Is your family in those tubes you were telling me about?”

The girl squinted at him. “I don’t _got_ family.”

“Have,” corrected Peter, ever the nerd.

“Ignore him,” said Wade. “We’ll help you get situated.”

Wade watched as the girl swung her feet absently. Both knees and palms were bandaged, as she’d rubbed them raw while climbing around in vents. She didn’t seem in distress at the moment, though they’d had quite the fight when it was time to get those on. Wade thought it would probably be a while (maybe never) before she forgave him for the way he outed her existence on the ship.

“Deadpool, can I talk to you?” asked a voice. He turned to see the serious face on none other than the Avengers’ own Captain America.

At the same time Iron Man turned to the child. “Hey, Kid. Come and meet my robots.”

They were being separated. Wade didn’t know why that bothered him. He _knew_ , beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the girl was just as safe with the Avengers as she was with him. Safer, probably. But still—something in him was fiercely protective of the kid, and he had to bite on his first reaction when he saw Tin Man leading the girl away.

“We found out who her family is,” the captain said.

“Who?” demanded Wade as he tried to keep an eye on the girl. He didn’t want to smother her with attention, but he felt an odd, almost overpowering need to make sure that she was all right.

“You.”

Wade’s attention turned towards the man sharply. “That’s not funny,” he said flatly.

“It’s not a joke.” The country mascot’s voice was calm, and gentle. Almost insultingly gentle.

Only _almost_ , because Wade did need the gentle tone. “I don’t have family.”

“Wade.” Wade paused. Captain America didn’t use his real name very often. “I was in North Korea with you.”

He had been. He’d seen the mountain of bodies that Wade had failed to save. That he _could_ have saved if he’d healed faster, realized what was happening, if he’d just been _faster…_

Steve knew. He’d been there, like he’d said. He, veteran of world war that he was, had warned Wade about what they could find. Wade had thought he’d seen everything. That he could handle everything.

Turned out, seeing a pile of dead bodies of people that he was trying to save was much more traumatizing than seeing a pile of dead bodies he’d helped get that way.

“Ellie’s body, your daughter’s body,” Steve pressed, “wasn’t there.” He gestured to where the girl was spending time with Iron Man, who was showing off a gauntlet. “She’s right there!”

No.

She couldn't be.

She’d died.

Hadn’t she?

“I need to talk to someone,” Wade said before turning.

“Deadpool. Deadpool!” called Steve as he left. “Wade!”

Peter’s reaction wasn’t what Wade expected. He immediately got on his phone and began researching. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before you can bring her home,” Peter said.

Wade froze. He hadn’t expected that reaction. “Bring her home?” he echoed warily.

Peter looked up, frown on his face. “Of course,” he said simply. “She’s your daughter, right? I’m not saying it will be easy,” he warned, “but we can do it.”

All this time Wade had been feeling stunned and shocked by the fact that the child was his. Was the little girl he’d worked so hard to save. That he’d thought he’d failed. And Peter just said, “Of course.” He didn’t even hesitate. Wade rushed over and folded Peter into a hug.

They could do it.

Wade grinned as Ellie ran by, shrieking with laughter as she shot her water gun at the other children in the park, her little tsum holding onto her curls. A year. It had been a long year, and hard. Ellie had gotten used to not having any kind of responsible adult (not that Wade would classify himself as “responsible”) and had pushed back against authority. Wade hadn’t known what to do.

Peter had. He’d been unfailingly, unflinchingly patient with the girl. He’d set firm boundaries (no screen time after a certain time, bed time was almost always at a certain time, pick up after herself, etc.), and he’d kept to them. He’d had Wade keep to them even when Wade wanted to give in to the first sign of a teary eye. Peter had kept them both firm.

(Wade had asked, once, how Peter always knew what to do. The younger man had smiled sadly and replied that it was what his Aunt and Uncle had done after his parents had died. Wade had hugged him. There was a lot of hugging in their relationship now.)

Peter’s tsum, clinging to Wade’s chest, made a high pitched chirping sound and Wade turned to see Peter approaching, arms full of snacks and drinks, dreamy smile (not that everything wasn’t dreamy) on his face. When the tsum came out of the cocoon, it was red with black and white in a very similar pattern to the Deadpool suit. It’s little paws seemed able to stick to anything, just like Peter could.

Peter placed his burden on the picnic table and sat next to Wade, leaning against the older man. “Should we call her in for food?”

Wade wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “Not yet,” he said before pressing a kiss to Peter’s cheek. “There’s not _that_ much room in the water gun. We’ll call her in when she runs out of ammo.”

He could hear the smile in Peter’s voice as the other replied, “That sounds good.” The two of them sat on the bench watching the child play.

Something in Wade’s chest settled. There were times when he was still sure that taking Ellie home was a mistake, that he’d somehow irreparably damage the sweet child—but there were times like this. Times when everything seemed perfect.

It was enough.


End file.
